Four main issues
to be debated in the
International Communist Movement

The Communist are
distinguished from the other revolutionaries because they have a more advanced
understanding of the conditions, of the forms and the results of the class
struggle and on this base they always pushes it forward.

Four main issues to be debated in
the International Communist Movement

This document deals with:

1. the issues we think important for carrying
out the struggle for getting a higher unity in the International Communist
Movement,

2. our positions about those issues,

3. the documents in common languages
(English, French, Spanish) where our position are explained in a thorough way.

Issues about which carry out the
discussion

The issues about which we think it is
necessary to carry out the discussion in the ICM are four:

1. the
evaluation of the communist movement (first wave of proletarian revolution and
first socialist countries, crisis of the communist movement and modern revisionism, new birth of the communist movement on the basis of Marxism
Leninism Maoism);

2. the
theory of the (first and second) general crisis of capitalism in imperialist epoch and the
connected developing revolutionary situation;

3. the
regime of preventive counter-revolution established by the bourgeoisie in the
imperialist countries;

4. the
strategy of the protracted revolutionary people’s war.

The positions of the
(new) Italian Communist Party about the four issues of the discussion.

1.

The evaluation of the communist movement
(first wave of proletarian revolution and first socialist countries, crisis of
the communist movement and modern revisionism, new birth of the communist
movement on the basis of Marxism Leninism Maoism, prospects of organization of
the International Communist Movement).

1.1
The first wave of proletarian revolution and the first socialist countries.

We
indicate as first wave of proletarian revolution the one that developed in the
first part of last century, together with the development of the first general
crisis of capitalism (see below: “The theory of (first and second) general
crisis of capitalism in imperialist era and the connected developing
revolutionary situation”). In short, the general crisis produces a developing
revolutionary situation. It is a revolutionary situation in which the features
described by Lenin[1]
protract and become more and more accentuated: so, it becomes easier for the
communist party to build the process that brings the working class to seize the
power. As a matter of fact, the developing revolutionary situation connected
with the first general crisis of capitalism was marked by the seizure of power
in Russia, China and elsewhere, that is by the creation of the first socialist
countries, by the destruction of the colonial system, by the construction of
communist parties practically in all the countries of the world and by great
conquests of civilization and welfare wrung by people’s masses in the
imperialist countries: in short by the first wave of proletarian revolution.

Evaluating this first wave
of proletarian revolution and the history of the first socialist countries we
need to put three questions to ourselves:

1. Why, during the first
wave of world proletarian revolution, in the first part of latest century, the
communist movement has not been able to establish socialism in any imperialist
country

2. Why, after a first
initial period of shining development and great victories, the first wave of
word proletarian revolution lost the momentum and the driving force of human
progress it had all over the world?

3. Why the first socialist
countries, that had come to cover one third of humanity, after an initial period
of great achievements, more and more slowed down, decayed until they collapsed
or they changed side and anyway they lost the role of red base of world
proletarian revolution they initially carried out?

1.1.1. Why, during the
first wave of world proletarian revolution, in the first part of latest century,
the communist movement has not been able to establish socialism in any
imperialist country?

Communists distinguish
themselves from other proletarians because they have a more advanced
understanding of conditions, forms and effects of the class struggle and, on
this basis, they drive it more and more onwards (Manifesto of the Communist
Party, 1848). When such understanding is not enough advanced, Communists act
blindly. They do not necessarily have a wrong line: instinct and class ties can
make up for their lack of understanding. Anyway in those cases they are taken by
surprise by the real effects of their activity. Considering their whole
activity, their successes in transforming reality and their defeats, we
understand also the positive they did being unaware of it, and we learn to do it
consciously, and so we can foresee the real effects and to build more advanced
tasks on their base. During the first wave of proletarian revolution, the
communist movements did blindly many positive tasks. Just because it worked
blindly, it has neither been able to reap the fruits nor to make a universal use
of some of them. The defeat we suffered obliges us to evaluate again its
activity and to get a more advanced understanding of conditions, forms and
effects of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie.

The parties of the first
Communist International failed to establish socialism in any imperialist country

1. because they had not a
right conception of the nature of socialist revolution, so they had no
scientific knowledge of the strategy to make the socialist revolution: the
protracted revolutionary people’s war,

2. because they did not
have a right conception of the general crisis that was going on.

They lacked the knowledge
that the socialist revolution, unlike the bourgeois revolution and other
revolutions occurred in the course of human history, is not something that
breaks out, that Communists have to wait for or which they have to prepare
themselves for by making propaganda, by mobilizing people’s masses in every
country to make claiming struggles and by taking part in bourgeois political
struggle, by organizing the working class and the rest of the masses in trade
unions, in mass organizations and in the communist party. On the contrary, the
socialist revolution is a process promoted and led by the communist party,
campaign after campaign, during which the party strengthens and consolidates,
collects and forms the revolutionary forces organizing the advanced elements of
the working class and of other classes of people’s masses, as well as in its own
ranks, in mass organizations which clump around the party (revolutionary front),
and builds, extends and strengthens step by step a new direction on the broad
masses, a new power which is opposed to that of the bourgeoisie and hugs him
more and more in a vise until supplanting it, as a rule through a civil war
unleashed by the bourgeoisie when it is with his back to the wall, grabbing the
whole country and establishing socialism.

This process is the
construction of the revolution and is the revolutionary people’s war in the
imperialist countries. Facing the advancement of people’s war and the
encirclement, the bourgeoisie normally reacts rousing civil war. In the
imperialist countries the communist parties of the Communist International, not
having a scientific conception of the revolutionary people’s war, could not
respond adequately to the bourgeoisie when it threatened or roused the civil
war: they retreated before it started (the most representative cases are France
in the years of the Popular Front and after the Resistance, and Italy after the
Resistance), or carried out the war in the wrong way and were defeated (the most
representative case is Spain 1936-1939). We draw similar lessons also from the
experience of Italy in the early ‘20s, of Germany and other European countries
in the ‘20s and ‘30s.

The parties concerned did
not have a scientific conception of the protracted revolutionary people’s war
and, therefore, neither of their leadership role in this process, of their role
of Staff of the working class. The awareness of being leaders of a protracted
revolutionary people’s war would lead them to enhance even reformists’
struggles, to exploit the antagonistic contradiction between reformists and
fascists, to exploit the contradictions within the ruling class, to build the
revolutionary front of people’s masses, to put the foundation for building the
revolutionary armed forces in various countries as soon as they had the right
conditions. The awareness of being leaders of a protracted revolutionary
people’s war would lead them to give top priority to clandestine activity, to
constitute themselves as clandestine parties or anyway become clandestine on
their own initiative. They maintained instead a simplistic and subordinate
conception of the clandestine activity, such as an activity pending or in
preparation for the clash that would take place when the revolution had broken
out, or else for the attempts of insurrection that the communist parties made
without considering the concrete situations and then failing. They did not have
the initiative and then gave a free hand to the initiative of the bourgeoisie
that stroke them in advance, breaking his own law, decimating the ranks of
political parties, arrested and sent to death their main leaders (Gramsci,
Thälmann).

Ultimately, the concerned
parties had a mechanistic conception of the revolution (as something that
happens thanks to factors external to us) and not dialectical materialistic (as
something that happens thanks to our subjective action if it corresponds to the
laws of reality).

The Russian Communist
Party acted essentially blindly, although in general it followed a right line
and then managed to seize power and build the first and most powerful socialist
country, the USSR. The Chinese Communist Party developed the theory of
protracted revolutionary people’s war strategy only in the 30s. The science of
protracted revolutionary people’s war is one of the six main contributions of
Maoism to communist thinking.

Which was the strategy
of the parties of the first Communist International for the conquest of power in
the imperialist countries?

In fact, the communist
parties of the imperialist countries were lacking a strategy and ranged between
attempts of insurrection and waiting for breaking out a revolution which by its
nature could not break out. Or they reduced socialist revolution to an
insurrection roused by the party or they were convinced that the socialist
revolution would start from a revolt of people’s masses determined by worsening
of their material conditions.

Now, the insurrections
roused by the communist parties failed regularly. The only insurrections roused
by the communist parties that were successful were those they roused as
particular battles within a war already in progress.

In the second case, the
revolt would not have been determined by the communist party: the communist
party, which until then had developed mass organizations and made propaganda,
would have taken the direction of the revolt. Communist parties supported,
promoted, organized and directed the claiming struggles of the working class and
of the other classes of people’s masses on one side (trade unions), and on the
other they were making propaganda of socialism and were involved in bourgeois
politics as the leftmost among the parties involved in this struggle. But these
two policies were separated between themselves, that is to say they were not
specifically and consciously combined in a strategy for seizing power step by
step in a relationship of war with the class enemy. They were not consciously
combined firstly to make bourgeoisie’s life impossible and then to tackle
successfully the civil war that the bourgeoisie would rouse. So even when and
where they were efficiently carried out and produced effects that subverted the
existing political order, they did not make the communist party able to get
strong positions to withstand the class enemy when it roused the civil war
against communist and popular forces.

The separation between the
support of the claims of the masses and the propaganda of socialism instead
generated in the party two unilateral, opposite and complementary trends:
economism and dogmatism. These two deviations then prevented the communist
parties from producing an effective strategy for the conquest of power, and
persist today in Marxist Leninist parties as the main obstacles to the new birth
of the communist movement.

1.1.2. Why, after a first initial period of
shining development and great victories, has the first wave of word proletarian
revolution lost the momentum and the driving force of human progress it had all
over the world?

The first wave of world
proletarian revolution lost momentum and driving force of human progress that it
had

1. because the communist
movement failed to advance in the imperialist countries, that is it failed to
transform any of them in a socialist country,

2. because, for this
reason and for internal reasons, the socialist countries declined until the
majority of them collapsed or changed sides.

In the communist parties
and in the international communist movement the left wing (the members most
resolutely dedicated to the cause of the revolution) was unable to successfully
cope with their responsibilities: this allowed the right wing (the members more
susceptible to bourgeoisie’s influence, the modern revisionists) to take the
leadership of communist parties and of the International Communist Movement and
to bring it to ruin.

Some comrades insist on
believing that communist parties are monolithic. This would be the only one
known exception to the contradictory nature of reality, acknowledged by the
dialectical materialist conception of the world. In reality, experience shows
that the bourgeoisie exerts its influence in the communist movement (and that
the communist movement exerts its influence within the bourgeoisie and the
clergy). In any communist party, its members and its instances are distinguished
among them by the different degrees in which are influenced by the bourgeoisie,
by varying degree of understanding of reality (contradiction between true and
false), by the different sensitivity to the new (contradiction between new and
old). The quantity turns into quality and in every party, stage by stage, there
is always a left (which pushes forward) and a right (which hampers). Normally
the two wings cooperate and complement each other, in every movement or
transformation. In some circumstances, the contradiction between the two rival
wings becomes antagonistic: then the left must expel the irreducible right,
otherwise the party declines and degenerates. The science of struggle between
the two lines in the party is one of the six main contributions of Maoism to
communist thinking.

1.1.3. Why did the first socialist countries,
that had come to cover one third of humanity, after an initial period of great
achievements, more and more slow down, decay until they collapsed or change side
and anyway lose the role of red base of world proletarian revolution they
initially carried out?

The
analytic evaluation of the first socialist countries: struggle between two lines
in socialism or bureaucratic degeneration?

According to some
comrades, the decline of the first socialist countries was due to the fact that
they degenerated into bureaucratic societies. Why did they degenerate? What can
we do about it? They do not explain it, because their conception is groundless.
It is a wrong argument that substantially converges with semi-anarchist and
anti-communist positions of Trotskyites. In fact, for a certain period no
socialist country (as no communist party) could do without a bureaucracy, that
is professional officers, distinct from the rest of the masses for their
professional preparation, responsible for carrying out functions of management
and other direction functions until and to the extent the mass organizations
will not be able to carry out them by themselves. The assumption of these tasks
by the masses is a goal of socialism, but its achievement will require some time
and will mean the extinction of the state as an institution separate from the
rest of society and that has a monopoly of violence, then the extinction of the
division of society into classes: so when that goal will be achieved, we shall
be in a communist society. The establishment of socialism does not abolish at
once the contradiction between who manages and who is directed , between
intellectual work and manual labor, between organizational and executive work,
between men and women, between adults and young, between city and countryside,
between advanced and backward sectors, regions and countries. These are seven
major differences and contradictions that can and should be removed in every
country and the world, only in stages after the establishment of socialism,
during the transition to communism, during the socialist phase. In essence this
is what Marx says it in his Critique of Gotha Program (1875). The
experience clearly shows that, in the history of the first socialist countries,
the socialist state and the mass organizations formed two poles of a
contradictory unity and that the class struggle concerned the very line with
which the Communist Party dealt with this contradiction.

Some comrades insist on
doing a wrong analysis of of the first socialist countries, an analysis
contradicted by the experience and sterile. According to these comrades, “in the
new society for a long period there are still classes: the working class and
peasant workers closely allied to each other, but there are also the remains of
ousted and expropriated classes. Throughout this period, these residues together
with elements that degenerate and oppose socialist construction, strive to
regain power. Because of this, class struggle will continue to exist in
socialist society “(Enver Hoxha, Imperialism and Revolution, 1978, pp.
268 of the French edition, Tirana 1979). Experience shows a completely different
course of events. In all of the first socialist countries, the restoration of
capitalism has been promoted by a large and prominent part of the communist
party. In the first socialist countries the bourgeoisie consisted of those
leaders of the party, of the State and of the mass organizations who wholly or
partly opposed to the steps necessary and possible to overcome those
contradictions. This is quite obvious, given the nature of socialist society and
the contradictions which animate its development, but it has not been easy to
understand. The class analysis of socialist society is one of the six main
contributions of Maoism to communist thinking.

Then in the socialist
society, the struggle was not between whether or not a bureaucracy has to exist,
the question on which Trotskyites and anarchists focus their attention, but on
the line the party followed, that Maoism and the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution of the Chinese people put at the center of attention. Throughout the
first phase of the existence of the first socialist countries, the bureaucracy,
well-directed by the communist party, has made an excellent and essential work
on behalf of socialism.

The
withdrawal of the first socialist countries began with the prevalence of the
right line in the two lines struggle within the communist parties who directed
both the State (consisting of officials, and so the bureaucracy) and the mass
organizations. The left line was opposed to the right one implementing steps in
the construction of socialism, while the right line gave or supported bourgeois
solutions to the problems of development of socialist society. Progresses
achieved in the construction of socialism, in the relations of production
(ownership of productive forces, relations between workers in the labor process,
product distribution), in the rest of social relations (politics, law, culture,
etc.), in the conception, in the consciousness of men and women, were the
changes that moved socialist countries away from capitalism and pre-capitalist
modes of production and brought them to Communism. They are listed in the
Manifest Program of the (new) Italian Communist Party, chap. 1.7.4 (http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html).

The
left line prevailed throughout the first phase, for the Soviet Union from the
October Revolution until the prevalence of the revisionists in 1956; for the
democracies of Eastern and Central Europe from 1945 to 1956; for the People’s
Republic of China from 1950 to 1976. The first stage was followed by a second
one, marked by the conquest of the directions of parties by the revisionists and
by their attempts to restore capitalism gradually and peacefully (for the USSR
and the Eastern and Central European democracies from 1956 to the end of the
80s, for the Republic of China since 1976 and is still going on). A third phase,
begun in the USSR and in People’s Democracies in Eastern Europe in the late 80s
and still going, is marked by the will to restore capitalism at any cost, and
then by a violent and destructive confrontation between the classes.

1.2. Crisis of the communist movement and
modern revisionism

Why
have modern revisionists managed to take the leadership of the communist
movement and take it off road?

The modern revisionists
have managed to take the leadership of the communist movement because the left
wing of the communist parties had insufficient understanding of the conditions,
forms and effects of class struggle. The parties acted blindly.

The left wing had not a
scientific understanding of the general crises of capitalism typical of the
period of its decadence, that is of the imperialist epoch (general crisis for
absolute overproduction of capital). It continued to reason on the basis of
Marx’s analysis about the cyclical crisis of the first half of the nineteenth
century (The Capital Vol. 1), even if Engel, already in the preface to
the 1886 English edition of that volume of TheCapital, indicated
that those decennial cyclical crises had been supplanted by a long depression.

The left wing had no
scientific knowledge of the strategy for the conquest of power in the
imperialist countries (protracted revolutionary people’s war).

The left wing had not a
correct understanding of the political regime of the imperialist countries
(regime of preventive counter-revolution).

The left wing had a
mistaken analysis of class composition and class struggle in socialist
countries.

In the stage before World
War II, the communist parties of the imperialist countries acted blindly and
constantly ranged between sectarian confrontation and opportunist conciliation,
between dogmatic sectarianism and unprincipled collaboration, between struggle
without unity and unity without struggle. In general, they gave a rightist
interpretation (“all through the front”) of the line drawn by Anti-fascist
Popular Front elaborated by the Communist International.

Since the end of World War
II, the left wing could not provide adequate solutions to the problems that the
situation put on in the agenda.

The right wing of the
communist movement (the modern revisionists) had an easy time, facilitated by
the force of tradition and by the support of reactionary forces, in imposing a
reformist line, where the communist party acted as the left wing of a political
alliance directed by the left wing of the imperialist bourgeoisie and the
working class renounced to seize the power.

After the modern
revisionists had taken the direction, the left wing opposed them, both within
and outside the communist parties, in a dogmatic way, without a correct
understanding of the reason of its defeat by modern revisionists, of the reason
why the revisionists have had the upper hand on the left wing and had taken the
leadership of the communist movement. It only raised the banner of the
restoration of the principles of Marxism-Leninism that the modern revisionists
were repudiating and condemned the betrayal of the cause of socialist revolution
by them: it veered into dogmatism. This position of the left wing destroys the
confidence in our cause and paralyzes the revolutionary spirit: in fact, nothing
and no one can guarantee that sooner or later a leader does not betray, nothing
can prevent the bourgeoisie from exerting some influence in our ranks. The left
wing came to adopt a conception of the world individualistic or even clerical,
anyway not Marxist, not dialectical materialist. They are not the individuals
who make history. Depending on the cases, they may betray or be heroically
dedicated to the cause. Who today is a hero, tomorrow can become a traitor and
vice versa. Individuals change, for better or for worse. Parties change: they
either progress or regress. The masses led by the Communist Party make history.
The effectiveness of the leadership of the party depends on the conception that
guides it and by the line it implements. It is the struggle within the party
which prevents the influence of the bourgeoisie from strengthening beyond
certain limits, which makes the conception of the world and the party line
advance, which develops the revolutionary character of the party and its link
with the masses.

The left wing missed some
fundamental contribution of Maoism, that is the scientific knowledge 1. of the
mass line as a primary method of direction and work of communist parties, 2. of
the two lines struggle in the communist parties, 3. of the intellectual and
moral reform the members of the communist party must carry out 4. the nature of
classes in socialist countries, as well as 5.of the strategy the protracted revolutionary people’s war.
These contributions are still missing by organizations that do not take
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the third and higher stage of communist thinking and
by the organizations taking it in a dogmatic, abstract and formal way (as in
Italy, Proletari Comunisti that even call themselves Maoist Communist
Party).

1.3. New birth of the
communist movement on the basis of MLM

The evaluation of the
first wave of proletarian revolution and the establishment of the strategy that
the communist parties must follow to successfully promote and guide the second
wave of the proletarian revolution can be summed up in the conception of the
world designated by the term Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The main contributions of
Mao to this conception are the six ones mentioned in the article about the Eighth
Discriminating Factor (2012) [The eighth discriminating factor in
EILE http://www.nuovopci.it, translated in English, Spanish, French, see below
in “Texts” Section]: 1. the protracted revolutionary people’s war as universal
strategy of the proletarian revolution, however to be applied under the
particular conditions of each country, 2. the revolution of new democracy as a
particular strategy of the oppressed semi-feudal countries in the world
imperialist system, 3. the class struggle in socialist society based on the seven
major contradictions that socialist society has to deal with, 4. the mass line as
the primary method of work and direction of the communist party, 5. the two lines
struggle in the communist party as a principle for the development of the party
and for his defense from bourgeoisie’s influence, 6. the intellectual and
moral reform of the members of the communist party.

1. The protracted
revolutionary people’s war

The protracted
revolutionary people’s war is the strategy that we Communists of the imperialist
countries have to follow for leading the working class to establish the
dictatorship of the proletariat, to begin the phase of socialist transformation
of society and to contribute to the second wave of world proletarian revolution.

2. The new
democratic revolutions

The new democratic
revolutions are the strategy of Communists in neocolonial countries oppressed by
imperialism, where the bourgeois revolution (the abolition of the relations of
personal dependence and the dominance of commodity production) for the essence
has not yet been accomplished.

3. The class struggle in socialist society

In socialist society, the
bourgeoisie consists of leaders of the party, of the state and of other social
institutions that support the road to capitalism.

4. The mass line

The mass line is the main
method of work and direction of every communist party. It combines the autonomy
of the party from the masses and its link with them in dialectical unity. It
consists of collecting the scattered and confuse elements of knowledge that
exist among the masses and their aspirations, of elaborating them so that we
obtain goals, guidelines, methods and criteria that we bring to the masses until
they make them their own and implement them. In this new situation, the process
repeats itself: we select the scattered and confused elements of knowledge and
the aspirations of the masses, we elaborate them obtaining from it objectives,
guidelines, methods and criteria that we propose to the masses because they make
them their own and implement them. By repeating this process over and over
again, each time Communists’ conceptions become richer and more concrete and the
revolutionary process proceeds to victory. Seen from another angle, in each
group the mass line consists of identifying the left wing (i.e. the part whose
tensions, if implemented, will lead the group to flow in the channel of
socialist revolution), the center and right wings, of mobilizing and organizing
the left so that it could be able to unite the center with itself and isolate
the right.

5. The two lines
struggle in the party

The two lines struggle in
the party is the principle for the development of the communist party and for
its defense from bourgeoisie’s influence. The principle corresponds to the law
of dialectical materialism according to which the contradiction is in all things
and governs their development. The development of the communist party is
governed by the contradiction between advanced and backward, between new and
old, between true and false, and by the contradiction between the interests of
the working class and the influence of the bourgeoisie in the communist party
itself. The two lines struggle is therefore not only debate in the search for
the right path, but also a reflection of the war between the classes within the
party. In this aspect it can become antagonistic.

To think that the party is
impervious to bourgeoisie’s influence, or that such influence can still be
resolved primarily or even only with organizational measures, as instruments of
control within it (Control Commission, etc.) and of closing outwards (standards
of recruitment, etc.), and so to think that the party is an entity not
inherently contradictory, is wrong. In the historical experience this conception
did not serve to preserve communist parties from degeneration. On the contrary,
it has even facilitated the influence of the bourgeoisie in the parties that
believed themselves immune.

6.
Intellectual and moral reform of communist party members

The Communist Party is not only subject of the
socialist revolution, but it is also its object. The socialist revolution
and the transition to communism entail an intellectual and moral
transformation of men and women, a transformation that the popular masses
cannot realize en masse due to the oppression by the bourgeois class and
other exploitative classes. They will realize it in the socialist phase of
their history, being based on their experiences within this transitory
period. This intellectual and moral transformation will allow men and women
to manage and lead their social life with science and consciousness. It will
allow them to create consciously their own history without needing any
ruling classes, any State, or any Communist Party. This transformation will
create that “association, in which the free development of each is the
condition for the free development of all”, as Marx and Engels wrote at the
end of the second chapter of the Manifesto of the Communist Party
(1848). Already today, within our party’s school, members of the Communist
Party are freely carrying out a transformation of their understandings of
the world, of their mentality, and to some extent of their personalities,
making them able to perform their roles as the vanguard of the popular
masses, acting as mentors, educators, organizers, and leaders of the popular
masses.

Some comrades objected the
“theory of three worlds” to Maoism. The theory of three worlds is certainly a
non-Marxist theory, which has had a negative role in the history of the
communist movement and served to the right wing of the Chinese Communist Party
for pushing through its program of introduction of capitalism in China (the
“four modernizations”, etc.) in order to make China an imperialist power. As far
as we know, it was stated for the first time publicly in April 1974, in UN
General Assembly Special Session on Raw Materials and Development by Teng
Hisao-ping, declared leader of the right wing of the Chinese Communist Party,
rehabilitated in April 1973 and dismissed again by each office in the Party and
State in April 1976.

It is doubtful that this
theory has been formulated by Mao Tse-tung: even Enver Hoxha did not dare to say
it , while reproaching Mao this theory. However, even if it was drafted by Mao,
this bourgeois theory does not invalidate the positive and essential
contribution that Maoism has given to communist thinking, to which that theory
is completely foreign. To say that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the third higher
stage of communist thinking, does not imply to state that Mao, Lenin or Marx did
not commit errors, that they never stated mistaken theories, to hold that these
great leaders of the communist movement were infallible. It would be a concept
completely alien to dialectical materialism. The main contributions of Maoism to
the communist thinking are the six ones clearly illustrated in the above-mentioned
article On the Eighth Discriminating Factor (2012). They are essential
for the revival of the communist movement.

1.4. Prospects of organization of the
International Communist Movement.

Why
does the new birth of the communist movement progress so slowly?

The communist movement has
not yet embraced the notion that the revolution does not breaks out, but has to
be built as Engels already stated in 1895 in the Introduction to Class
Struggles in France from 1848 to 1850. Both in the time of Second
International and in the time of the Communist International most of the parties
waiting for the revolution to break out developed activities supporting claiming
struggles or propaganda of socialism. From this there arose the two wrong
tendencies that still persist as the major elements that put a check on the new
birth of the communist movement, that is economism and dogmatism.

We share the conception
expressed by Frederick Engels, who stated that socialist revolution cannot
consist of a popular uprising that breaks out because a combination of
circumstances, during which the most advanced party seizes the power. As we have
already told in various parts of this document, the socialist revolution is a
protracted revolutionary people’s war led by the communist Party one campaign
after another, during which the communist party strengthens and consolidates,
collects and forms the revolutionary forces organizing the advanced elements of
the working class and of the other classes of the popular masses, as well as in
its own ranks, in mass organizations which clump around the party (revolutionary
front), and builds, extends and strengthens step by step a new direction on
broad popular masses, a new power which is opposed to that of the bourgeoisie
and hugs him in a growing vise until it supplants it, as a rule through a civil
war roused by the bourgeoisie when it is with its back on the wall, grabs the
whole country and establishes socialism. This strategy of socialist revolution
is confirmed by the evaluation of the experience of the first wave of
proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries.

The prospects of
organization of the International Communist Movement are closely linked to the
new birth of the communist movement. This will certainly occur as we shall
overcome in our ranks dogmatism and economism that in each country prevent the
communist movement from playing the role only it can play in the turmoil of the
terminal phase of the second general crisis in which the masses are involved
everywhere. The struggle to overcome dogmatism and economism in the
International Communist Movement is the struggle for its reorganization. The
efforts to reorganize the International Communist Movement or anyway to promote
its new birth by means and initiatives mainly or only organizational are
unfruitful. The discussion that we want to lead is a component of the struggle
to reorganize the International Communist Movement and to found the second
Communist International.

2.

The theory of the (first and second) general
crisis of capitalism in imperialist epoch and the connected developing
revolutionary situation.

The most recent and
concise exposition of the ongoing general crisis that we have is the following
article (The interpretation of the nature of current crisis decides communist
parties’ activity) by Nicola P., member of the editorial staff of the
magazine La voce del (n) PCI, for the International Newsletter of
the International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organizations. The
article echoes many themes discussed in this document tying them to the
phenomenon of general crisis.

The globalization of
production of commodities and of financial activity is an effect of the general
crisis. Every general crisis has produced a general step on in globalization, as
well as greater political and cultural unity of the world, the world wars, etc.
Absolute overproduction of capital has unleashed capitalists to bustle as beasts
of prey, each one trying to make the entire world his hunting grounds and
territory of looting and robbery. It is the way by which it affirms the unity of
the human species within the capitalist relations of production. It is a
presupposition of communist society of which the communist movement has to guide
the construction. It implies the international nature of the socialist
revolution that anyway is still national in its form. The proletarian revolution
is international for its content: Communism can succeed only as a conquest of
all humanity. But the socialist revolution is the combination of the conquest of
power in single countries by the proletariat organized and guided by its
organized vanguard and of starting the social transition in single countries.

The interpretation of the nature of current crisis decides communist parties’
activity(article by Nicola P.)

It is very important,
indeed it is essential that we correctly understand the nature of the current
crisis. In the 11th of the Theses on Feuerbach (1845), Marx
says: “Philosophers have only given different interpretations of the world. But
the question is to transform it.” On the other side, in the Communist Party’s
Manifesto (1848) Marx says that Communists are distinguished from other
proletarians because they have a more advanced understanding of the conditions,
forms and results of class struggle and, on this basis, they keep pushing it
forward (Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848). The interpretation of
the world is not the goal of us Communists. Our goal is the transformation of
the world. But people need to represent to themselves, to have an idea of what
they do. The socialist revolution is not something instinctive. Lenin strongly
taught (What has to be done?) that the theory that guides the communist
movement does not at all arise spontaneously from experience. It has to be
elaborated by the Communists who, for this purpose, have to use the most
sophisticated tools of knowledge that humanity has. The Communists took it to
the working class that, for the position it occupies in capitalist society, is
especially predisposed to assimilate and to take it as a guide for its actions.
The practical communist movement can grow beyond a basic level only if it is
guided by a revolutionary theory. Our action to transform the world, other
things being equal, it is all the more effective the more just and advanced is
our understanding of the world. Only with a fairly good understanding of the
nature of the crisis which we are involved in, we can make the socialist
revolution, and the second wave of the proletarian revolution will bring
humanity to finally overcome capitalism, to build socialism all over the world
on the way towards Communism.

The way we interpret the
world has a great importance for our political purposes. It influences our
political activities, making them more or less effective. It is therefore
necessary that we Communists take the time and attention needed to test and
improve our understanding of the current crisis.

Even today many Communists
interpret the current crisis by transposing in the present the interpretation
Marx gave of the crises of the capitalist countries in the first part of the
nineteenth century, as if the current crisis would be of the same kind of
decennial cyclical crises described by Marx, as if it would be like those with
the only difference that now is global. This attitude is one of the
manifestations of dogmatism that still rages in the communist movement and makes
much of its activity fruitless and its action inconclusive. The cyclical crises
described by Marx in the 1st book of The Capital are over.
Already in 1886 preface to the English edition of the 1st book of
The Capital Engels pointed out that the latest of the cyclical crises of
capitalism, the latest crisis of the same nature of those described by Marx,
occurred in 1867 and that capitalist countries since 1873 were instead entered
into a long and painful depression of which in 1886 they still did not see the
end.

The cyclical crises belong
to the epoch of pre-imperialist capitalism, when economic relations were
characterized by free competition between many capitals. They were economic
crises. They were determined by the anarchical proceeding of business and the
solution of those crises was coming from the same economic movement of
capitalist society. The fall of the business also created the conditions for
their resumption. Not by chance the crises were cyclical, and the cycle lasted
about a decade. When the imperialist phase began, on one hand the capitalist
societies equipped themselves with large-scale systems and organisms that
attenuated the amplitude of cyclical fluctuations of business: the Antithetical
Forms of Social Unity, which Marx already described in the Grundrisse. On
the other hand, the general crises of capitalism began. These are crises that
have their basis in absolute overproduction of capital. Marx explains what this
is in chapter 15 of the 3rd book of The Capital: the
capitalists have accumulated too much capital and in the existing political
context they can no longer continue to accumulate and increase in value all it
by producing commodities. The political and social context must be disrupted and
replaced by another. It is only by this political and cultural upheaval that the
general solution of the crisis comes. The solution does not come either by the
anarchist movement of business, or by economic measures the governments and
other social institutions could take. So the economic crisis becomes political
and cultural.

The long depression
mentioned by Engels in his preface of 1886 brought the major powers to divide
the world among them and introduced the world in the imperialist phase of
capitalism: the epoch in which economic the economic relations are no longer
characterized by free competition between many capitalists, but by the dominance
of monopolies in the production of commodities and by the dominance of financial
capital on the capital employed in the production of commodities. It is the
epoch in which capitalism has exhausted its civilizing role and became a
parasite. In the capitalist countries, the bourgeoisie is politically allied and
combined with the residual feudal forces (in Europe especially with the Catholic
Church). In the political and cultural field it has become undemocratic,
reactionary, militaristic and repressive. In the colonies it combined with the
feudal forces and divided the world into imperialist and oppressed countries.

The very first real
general crisis of the imperialist epoch took place in the first half of last
century. It brought humanity to the two world wars and created the long
revolutionary situation which covered the entire first part of last century. All
around the world it was a period of instability of political regimes. In its
ambit, it developed the first wave of world proletarian revolution that created
the first socialist countries and spread communist movement all over the world.

One of the main reasons
why the communist movement did not succeed to establish socialism in the
imperialist countries and then to put a definitive end to capitalism consists
exactly in the inadequate understanding of the nature of the general crisis in
progress and its economic foundations by the communist parties of the
imperialist countries. Despite Lenin and Stalin’s discoveries and teachings,
substantially in the imperialist countries the parties of the Communist
International remained anchored in the interpretation that Marx had given of the
cyclical economic crises that the capitalist countries crossed in the first part
of the nineteenth century. All the analyses of E.S. Varga, the greatest
economist of the Communist International, remain in that ambit. They describe
the fluctuations in the economic movement, not the long-term general phenomenon,
still less the resulting political and cultural crisis and from which the
resolution of the general crisis comes. The communist parties of the imperialist
countries were not able then to carry out their work despite their large growth,
the heroism of millions of their members and their historic commitment to the
successful struggle against fascism. The imperialist bourgeoisie managed to
maintain the direction of the imperialist countries. Thanks to the turmoil
produced by the two world wars and related social, political and cultural
movements, it was able to start again the accumulation of capital and develop
new large-scale commodity production for several decades (1945-1975). The thrust
the first wave of proletarian revolution impressed to the progress of humanity
diminished instead almost to extinction. Modern revisionism took the direction
of the communist movement, corroded and disrupted it on a large scale, made the
first socialist countries regress, brought them to ape the imperialist countries
and depend on them, until they collapsed. The struggle the Communists led by Mao
at the head of the Chinese Communist Party opposed to modern revisionism and its
destructive work did not serve to arrest the decline of the communist movement.
Anyway, in particular thanks to the Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution, it
gave great teachings to all the Communists who were able to get them. Thanks to
them the communist movement is born again all over the world, struggling against
dogmatism and economism that still restrain its momentum and its rebirth.

The capitalist world has
entered its second general crisis since the 70s of last century. Capitalism
could not escape the absolute overproduction of capital: it is the limit to
development, the limit inherent to capitalism itself. Capitalism is unavoidably
bound to bump into this limit. It took only thirty years after the Second World
War for the bourgeoisie to find itself again facing a general crisis, but in the
new conditions created by the first wave of proletarian revolution and its
decline. It had accumulated too much capital and cannot continue to accumulate
and increase it all in value producing goods and services in the political and
social context created during the first general crisis, having accumulated too
much capital and not being able to continue to accumulate and increase it all in
value producing goods, in the political and social context created during the
first general crisis, but in the new conditions created by the first wave of
proletarian revolution and its decline. The inclusion in the global imperialist
system of most of the first socialist countries, particularly China and Russia,
has partially changed the situation but has not fundamentally altered the course
of events. For the first time, the environmental crisis added to the general
crisis of capitalism and the two crises together determine the objective
conditions in which the rebirth of the communist movement develops and the
second wave of proletarian revolution advances throughout the world. It will
continue to advance, because mankind is a species provided with intelligence.
During the millennia of its evolution from a state similar to that of other
animal species to its current state, it has been able to solve all the problems
of its survival. Today has the material, moral and intellectual means to
overcome capitalism and establish socialism, and to end the devastation produced
by capitalism and definitely improve the natural conditions of the Planet.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the revolutionary conception of the world that guides
the new birth of the communist movement. Only through this conception the
communist parties can transform themselves and grow until they will be equal to
the tasks they have to carry out.

A just and adequate
understanding of the nature and causes of the new general crisis and of the
conditions of its solution is essential to form communist parties adequate to
the glorious tasks of this phase. So, it is essential a right analysis of the
experience of the 160-years history of the communist movement and in particular
of the experience of the first wave of proletarian revolution and of the first
socialist countries. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is this. That is why the fight for
his assertion is the main aspect of proletarian internationalism. The main help
that every communist party can give to others, is to contribute to the
understanding, assimilation and assertion of the right theory of general crisis
and the right analysis of the communist movement, so that each party could draw
the right conclusions for constructing the socialist revolution in his country
taking into account its particular characteristics, and so contributing to the
common task of the world proletarian revolution.

One of the most important
conclusions is that socialist revolution by its nature is not a popular uprising
that breaks out and where the Communist Party, which was well prepared for the
event, avails itself of the opportunity to seize the power and establish
socialism. The socialist revolution is not an event that breaks out, as
determined by the worsening economic and social conditions, by the suffering
which the bourgeoisie imperialist constrains to the mass of the population, by
the propaganda of the communist parties and by the organization of the popular
masses. Communists waiting for the socialist revolution to break out will be
disappointed again and again, today as they were in the past. Some will even
draw reactionary conclusions: they will impute to masses’ backwardness and
cowardice, to oppressed classes’ nature what is mainly due to communist parties’
backwardness. Already in 1895, in the Introduction to Class Struggles in
France from 1848 to 1850 Engels pointed out that, unlike the bourgeois
revolution, the socialist revolution by its nature does not breaks out, but it
must be built by the communist party. As Lenin and Stalin (Principles of
Leninism) taught, by constructing large mass organizations of the working
class and other classes of the masses, the Second International (1889-1914)
contributed to the construction of the socialist revolution. But most of the
parties that composed it were not guided by a correct conception of the world,
particularly regarding the general crisis of capitalism, the protracted
revolutionary situation it generated and the nature of the socialist revolution.
They expected that the socialist revolution broke out rather than building it
one phase after another, one campaign after another, as a revolutionary people’s
war that leads to the establishment of socialism in every country, and then, in
combination with the other countries, to the world proletarian revolution. They
instead assume as their sole or at least their main task the mobilization of the
masses into claiming struggles, their cultural organization and their
participation in the bourgeois political struggle, convinced that doing so they
were preparing themselves to “seize the opportunity” of the revolution that
would break out. In the imperialist countries the parties of the Communist
International (1919-1943, but actually dissolved in 1956) have traced the same
way, to a higher level of organization and international links. Many communist
parties, especially in the imperialist countries, are still stagnant at this
conception of their duties and that the very experience of the first wave of
proletarian revolution has proved to be inadequate. Economism and dogmatism are
the main restraint to the new birth of the communist movement. In fact, what the
leaders do not understand, in their way the masses, especially the advanced
workers, feel: in fact they do not join the efforts of dogmatic and economist
new parties (even if these parties in all honesty claim themselves
revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist and even Maoist) to follow the path that the
experience has already shown to be disastrous.

In 2008, with the
financial crisis began in the USA, the second general crisis has entered its
terminal phase. Even in the richest imperialist countries (in USA. and EU) a
growing number of workers, millions and millions of them, are thrown into the
street and add to the huge mass of hundreds of millions of workers in the
oppressed countries against which for decades the imperialist bourgeoisie has
been leading an undeclared war of extermination on a large scale in every corner
of the world. The imperialist states cannot afford to endlessly expand
unemployment benefits and other social security cushions because their budget
deficits, the loans they take out and their debts further disrupt monetary and
financial system, whose instability and crashes they instead should remedy,
because a stable financial and monetary system is the condition and the support
of their whole world. Then the terminal phase may not extend for long.

Given the nature of the
current crisis, it does not admit a way out done only of economic measures. It
is not enough that the states should create conditions to suggest to the
capitalists more profit in the production of goods rather than in financial
speculation: this is the solution advocated by the moderate bourgeois right. Nor
it is enough that the States distribute monetary income to the classes that will
surely spend it for consumption: it is a solution supported by the bourgeois
left and by the Communists who think that the current crisis is of the same kind
of the cyclical crises of the nineteenth century and then apparently, denying
evidence, believe also that the general crisis of the first part of last century
has been resolved thanks to the Keynesian policies of the bourgeois state.

We can go out of the
current crisis only by a political and cultural upheaval, creating a different
social context. Basically in the next future there are two and only two ways
out, in every single country and internationally.

Or the revolutionary
mobilization of the popular masses led by the communist parties equal to their
tasks, namely, by parties who dare to think that the socialist revolution is
possible and understand that it is Communists’ task to build it campaign after
campaign, as a protracted revolutionary people’s war until the establishment of
socialism.

Or the reactionary
mobilization of the masses. In fact, also the imperialist bourgeoisie and other
reactionary classes are looking for a way out of the current situation. They
need it and will have it unless we stop them in time. In short, for bourgeois
groups determined to halt the revolutionary mobilization and to prevent the
disappearance of their world, the only feasible and realistic way to end the
crisis is to mobilize that part of the masses they are able to mobilize under
their direction for throwing it against the rest of the masses and drag it all
to plunder the rest of the world: the imperialist war. It would be the
continuation by other means of the politics that they lead today. The
environmental crisis and the general crisis of capitalism combine to provide to
the more far-sighted, more resolute, more adventurous and more criminal
bourgeois groups adequate excuses to mobilize masses against masses, countries
against countries, a coalition against another.

The interpretation we give
to the crisis is therefore a decisive factor.
The new Italian Communist Party calls the Communists all around the world, but
particularly those of the imperialist countries, to join a true conception of
the current crisis and of our tasks.

3.

The regime of preventive
counter-revolution established by the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries.

The regime of preventive
counter-revolution is the system of social relations through which the
bourgeoisie still preserves its dominance in our and other imperialist
countries. It was created for the first time by the US imperialist bourgeoisie
at the beginning of last century in order to deal with the communist movement in
the USA and has been successful because of the limits of American and
International Communist Movement. After the Second World War, the bourgeoisie
has extended it to all the imperialist countries as a means to help the right
wing to gain and maintain the leadership in the communist movement and taking
advantage of the fact that the communist movement give up to establish
socialism. The bourgeoisie keeps alive this regime as long as is effective, that
is, until it is able to stop the growth of consciousness and organization of the
masses beyond the limits compatible with its own dominance. When it is no longer
able to do this, the bourgeoisie resorts to reactionary mobilization of the
masses, that is fascism, terror, civil war and war. The worsening of the second
general crisis, the beginning of terminal phase of the second general crisis of
capitalism and the decline of global hegemony of U.S.A and of the European
imperialist powers are destroying the regimes of preventive counterrevolution.
Anyway, in the imperialist countries the power of the bourgeoisie ultimately
relies mainly on its hegemony rather than on repression and weapons and no one
can rule permanently these countries if the workers of capitalist firms are
actively resistant to its power. Then the communist parties of the imperialist
countries, in building the socialist revolution, that is in promoting and
directing the protracted revolutionary people’s war that will establish
socialism, today must lever both on the existence of the regime of preventive
counter-revolution and on its ongoing dissolution: in short, on the struggle
between the revolutionary and the reactionary mobilization of the masses. Which
one will prevail is not yet decided. If reactionary mobilization would prevail,
the objective conditions of our struggle will completely change and we should
reset our work. The argument that the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries
has already introduced a “modern fascism” is a theory developed by the bourgeois
left wing (which actually it has already been put aside, has already been
defeated) and adopted by some groups and communist organizations (in Italy by
Proletari Comunisti). It is a thesis that paralyzes revolutionary activity.

The communist parties of
the imperialist countries must therefore understand the nature and origin of the
regimes of preventive counter-revolution, both to make a just evaluation of past
experience (why did we not even establish socialism in an imperialist country)
and to direct their actions today rightly.

Which are the universal
features of regimes of preventive counterrevolution?

In the regime of
preventive counter-revolution the bourgeoisie combines five lines of action
(five pillars that hold together each regime of preventive counter-revolution).

1.
To maintain popular masses’ cultural and political backwardness. In order to do
it, to spread actively a culture of evasion from reality, to promote theories
movements and occupations that distract attention, interest and activities of
people’s masses from classes antagonism and concentrate it on futilities
(diversion), to make confusion and intoxication with reactionary theories and
false news. In short, to prevent the rise of political consciousness with a
proper articulate system of cultural operations. In this field, the bourgeoisie
reappraised and recovered the role of religions and churches, firstly that of
Catholic Church, but couldn’t limit itself to it, because part of the masses
unavoidably escaped their seizure.

2.
To satisfy the requests of improvement that the popular masses make more
strongly, to give everyone the hope to have a dignified life and feed this hope
with some practical result, to envelop every worker in a network of financial
bonds (loans, instalments, mortgages, bills, taxes, rents, etc.) that every
moment make him risk to lose everything or anyway much of its social state and
richness if he’s not able to respect fixed deadlines. If in claiming struggles
against bourgeoisie the popular masses conquered time and money, the bourgeoisie
must address them to use them for satisfying their “animal needs”. So it had to
multiply and multiplied means and way to satisfy them so that they work out the
time and the money they have.

3.
To develop channels for popular masses’ participation in bourgeoisie’s political
struggle in a subordinate position, following its parties and exponents. The
popular masses’ participation in bourgeoisie’s political struggle is an
essential ingredient of preventive counterrevolution. The division of powers,
the representative assemblies, the political elections and the struggle among
various parties (the multipartitism) are essential aspects of the regimes of
preventive counterrevolution. The bourgeoisie has to make the masses perceive as
their own the State that in reality is that of imperialist bourgeoisie. All
those who want to participate in political life must be allowed to participate.
The bourgeoisie, however, lays and must lay down the tacit condition that they
had to play along with ruling class’ laws: they had not to go beyond its social
order. Despite this tacit condition, however and immediately the bourgeoisie is
obliged to divide more definitely its political activity in two fields. A public
one, which the popular masses are admitted to (the “petty theatre of bourgeois
politics”). A secret one, reserved to the authorized staff. To tacitly respect
this division and adapt itself to it is an indispensable requirement of any
“responsible” politician”. Obviously, every tacit rule is a weak point of the
new mechanism of power.

4.
To maintain the popular masses and particularly the workers in a state of
powerlessness, to prevent them from organizing themselves (without organization
a proletarian has no social force), to supply the masses with organizations led
by men the bourgeoisie trusts in (organizations the bourgeoisie makes build to
divert the masses by class organizations, mobilizing and supporting priests,
policemen and the like: the “Yellow” organizations like the Italian Unionist
Confederation of Workers, the Italian Christian Association of Workers, the
Italian Union of Workers, etc.), by venal, corruptible, ambitious,
individualists men, to prevent the workers from forming an organization
autonomous from bourgeoisie in its structure and orientation.

5.
To selectively repress Communists. To prevent by all means that communists from
getting success: that they could multiply their strength organizing themselves
in party, that they could have a right conception of the world, right method of
knowledge and work and a right strategy, that they could carry out an effective
activity, that they could recruit, that they could establish their hegemony over
the working class. To corrupt and co-opt, and break and eliminate those who do
not let themselves be corrupted or co-opted.

The general crisis in general and
even more its terminal phase is destroying and in a large extent has already
destroyed the second of the universal 5 pillars of the regime of preventive
counter-revolution. The political crisis leads the bourgeoisie itself to
strongly crack the third and fourth pillars of the five (limits to the
participation by the masses to bourgeois political struggle as more
contradictions grow, anti-trade union politics by owners and their authorities).
The “war against terrorism” is the banner under which the bourgeoisie is
increasingly cracking the fifth of the five pillars. Under these conditions, the
effectiveness of the first of the five pillars is reduced. The conditions for
developing the revolutionary people’s war are improving in all imperialist
countries. The strong presence of immigrant workers facilitates our work. The
heroic resistance of the oppressed countries attacked by the USA, the Zionists
and other imperialist powers promotes the development of the second wave of
proletarian revolution, although the struggle of the Arab and Muslim countries
is still largely directed by reactionary classes and groups. The resistance that
an increasing number of countries (from Latin America to China to Iran to
Russia) opposed to the claims of US imperialism and of Zionist groups,
politically weaken the global imperialist system that still has its center in
the USA. The US imperialist bourgeoisie is increasingly tempted to resort to the
military supremacy it still has. The race between
revolutionary and reactionary mobilization, between revolution and war is fully
under way in single countries and internationally. In this situation every communist
party, besides devoting its main energies to build the revolution in his
country, has to devote energies to the new birth of the International Communist
Movement worldwide and in particular to the new birth of the communist movement
in the USA: this is probably the only way to prevent
US imperialist bourgeoisie from continuing to form a bloc with the Zionist
groups and plunging the world into a new world war. Promoting the struggle to
eliminate the domination of the imperialist bourgeoisie in the USA is mainly
responsibility of the American communist movement, but is also a universal task
of the communist movement, similarly as to eliminate the Vatican and the
Catholic Church is mainly responsibility of the Italian communist movement, but
is also a universal task of the communist movement, considering the role that
this residual of European Middle Age plays in world system of imperialist
oppression.

4.

The strategy
of the protracted revolutionary people’s war.

What does the protracted revolutionary
people’s war consist of in our country and in the imperialist countries in
general?

The protracted people’s
war is a universal strategy that has to be applied in each country according to
particular laws.

For our country, Italy, the first and most
general peculiarity lies in the fact that ours is an imperialist country, and
therefore there are not valid the same laws applied in the oppressed,
semi-feudal and neo-colonial countries. In these countries war is waged in the
countryside and surrounds cities, the accumulation of revolutionary forces is
based on the involvement and support of the peasant masses, that here are the
vast majority of the population.

In imperialist countries like
ours, the accumulation of revolutionary forces proceeds through the
establishment and the resistance of the clandestine party and its direction on
the masses to join every kind of mass organizations necessary to satisfy their
material and spiritual needs, to join the bourgeois
political struggle in order to overthrow its course and to carry out the
claiming struggles demands, until to put the bourgeoisie in the alternation of
rousing a civil war or losing power without fighting. We must work and are
working in the prospect of facing and winning the civil war. Only in this way we
will be prepared for any eventuality. This is in our country the
equivalent of what is “encircling the cities from the countryside” in
semi-feudal country.

The revolutionary people’s
war in the imperialist countries begins with the founding of the party that
governs it. In our country began with the founding of the (new) Italian
Communist Party.

Revolutionary people’s war
in Italy does not start then with the armed struggle. The transition to armed
struggle, namely the civil war, in our country will be the transition from the
first phase of the war (the strategic defensive, the phase of accumulation of
forces) to the second phase (the strategic balance: two forces collide and
contend for the land).

The transition from the
phase of the accumulation of forces to that the civil war or to forms of civil
war already occurred in our country three times:

1. after the First World
War in what was called Red Biennium,

2. at the end of World War
II, with the Partisan Resistance,

3. in the ‘70s, with the
Fighting Communist Organizations (Red Brigades).

The successes and failures
of these experiences are valuable elements of knowledge for the PRPW that (n)
PCI directs. These events confirm that the communist movement acted blindly, but
also indicate which is the line that it must consciously implement.

We say that the revolution
is being built, and that is not something that breaks out. The construction of
the revolution is the development of protracted revolutionary people’s war. In
it, a campaign follows another based on the results of the former and in its
turn creates the conditions for a campaign of higher level (concatenation). Each
campaign consists of battles and tactical operations that are combined together
(synergy) or follow one another (concatenation).

The phases of the war,
both in the oppressed countries, and in the semi-feudal and neo-imperialist
countries, are three: the phase of strategic defensive, that of strategic
equilibrium, that of strategic offensive. In the imperialist countries like
ours, this stage is that the defensive strategy. At this stage the party
accumulates the revolutionary forces. At this stage in the imperialist
countries, the battlefield is not that of the armed clash, but that where the
party attacks the heart of the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie: its
hegemony over the masses and his ability to steer their conscience and direct
their actions. Here it makes the imperialist bourgeoisie lose ground.

Protracted Revolutionary People’s War overcomes a limit of the Communist
International.

Unlike the Second
International, the Communist International had a clear conscience and has in his
practice taken in account the qualitative difference between the struggles of
interest (inherent to bourgeois society and chronic) and the struggle for
socialism. However, it has consistently opposed, as elements one of which
excludes the other, peaceful struggle and violent struggle, work within the
bourgeois society and work against bourgeois society, parliamentary activity and
civil war, reform and revolution, alliance and
struggle, non-antagonistic and antagonistic contradictions, contradictions
between the masses and the imperialist bourgeoisie and contradictions between
groups within the ruling class, politics for claims and for revolution,
clandestine organization and legal organization. On the contrary, in reality,
these elements are unity of opposites. The strategy of the protracted
revolutionary people’s war recognizes this unity of opposites, it develops both
terms of the unity and composes by them the struggle of the working class to
undermine and ultimately eliminate the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie and
establish socialism.

Texts for the analysis

1. The evaluation of the communist movement (first wave of
proletarian revolution and first socialist countries, crisis of the communist
movement and modern revisionism, new birth of the communist movement based on
Marxism Leninism Maoism, prospects of organization of International Communist
Movement).

1.1.The first wave of proletarian revolution and
the first socialist countries.

1.1.1.Why, during the first wave of world
proletarian revolution, in the first part of latest century, the communist
movement has not been able to establish socialism in any imperialist country?

1.1.2.Why, after a first initial period of shining
development and great victories, has the first wave of word proletarian
revolution lost the momentum and the driving force of human progress it had all
over the world?

1.1.3.Why did the first socialist countries, that
had come to cover one third of humanity, after an initial period of great
achievements, more and more slow down, decay until they collapsed or change side
and anyway lose the role of red base of world proletarian revolution they
initially carried out?

1.2.Crisis of the communist movement and modern
revisionism

1.3.New birth of the communist movement on the
basis of MLM

1.4.Prospects of organization of the International
Communist Movement.

2.

The theory of the (first and second) general
crisis of capitalism in imperialist epoch and the connected developing
revolutionary situation.

3.

The regime of preventive counter-revolution
established by the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries.

4.

The strategy of the protracted revolutionary
people’s war.

1. Lenin describes the
revolutionary situation with the following features: “1. the ruling classes
cannot maintain their domination without changing it form (…); 2. a
worsening greater than usual of distress and misery of the oppressed
classes; 3. because of all this, the activity of the masses increases
considerably, that is they, in a “peaceful” period, let themselves be
plundered, but in stormy times are driven both by the whole crisis and by
the “higher strata” themselves to a historical independent action (Lenin –
The failure of the II International)